
Originally Posted by
olivia8143
You're obviously having trouble understanding me. I mean't that in the USA the landowner owns the mineral rights so greedy landowners will sell their health & safety (and that of their neighbours) to Big Oil. Whereas in the UK
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When UK shale gas extraction by fracking first began to feature in press reports some years ago, there was a belief that lords of the manor would profit substantially from energy companies drilling beneath lands subject to manorial rights. The reasoning appears to have been as follows. English law allows for the ownership of land and rights over or under the land to be vested in different parties. Lordship rights, if separated from surface ownership, would allow the owner of those rights ownership of minerals beneath the surface. Since gas is a mineral, a lord of the manor in whom mineral rights was vested would be entitled to ownership of the gas.
The Crown and minerals
The problem with this analysis was that it took no account of legislation which nationalised gas. Hydrocarbons – gas, oil and coal - have been vested in the Crown since 1934, and this explains why government can issue licences for shale gas exploration and extraction. So lords of the manor cannot claim ownership of shale gas, even if they own the land from which the gas is extracted.
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